[gregjor]

Laying off then re-hiring at reduced pay and benefits, a common practice not confined to the tech industry or FAANG. Also a way to get rid of troublesome and unproductive people under the guise of a mass layoff. Labor unions exist in part to prevent that practice.

I'll let you work out why companies might prefer hiring people with less experience, or discriminate against older and more experienced people -- a practice so widespread in tech we joke about it. Hint: seniority usually implies higher pay, lower chance of getting blinded by free pizza and dry cleaning, and more independence of thought in the workplace. Less work experience usually means a more compliant employee.

A more cynical take: the tech companies, especially FAANG and the startups that emulate them, over-hired to hoard "talent" and slow down their competitors. And they based their hiring binges on bad ideas like "the metaverse," or more generally sustained crazy growth as if markets never mature. The layoffs then represent the workers paying the price for poor management and short-sighted decisions, and pandering to Wall Street and VCs.

[mattbrewsbytes]

I would counter that much of our thought process here at HN is on engineering but at a company the size of a FAANG there are thousands of non engineering people. Unless they have shared a breakdown on layoffs per role/business area it could also be that they need less advertising, marketers, recruiters, sales, support, etc. and are slowing engineering hires down. Two of the FAANG rely heavily on advertising as their cash cow and in an economic downturn companies spend less on advertising.

Getting hired with RSU's at current prices as an element of total comp would put new hires in a good position financially once the economy cycles back into growth.

[badpun]

> The layoffs then represent the workers paying the price for poor management and short-sighted decisions, and pandering to Wall Street and VCs.

You could say that those laid off people were mostly not needed in the first place, and represented burning of billions of Wall Street and VCs funds on unnecessary salaries. So, these people got lucky they got $300k-$500k doing BS things that no one needs, and being the beneficiary of large, misguided wealth transfer from the capitalist class to the worker class. Now the party's over for them, but the money they earned in the meantime gets to stay in their pockets.

[gregjor]

I could say that, with a couple of caveats.

> those laid off people were mostly not needed in the first place, and represented burning of billions of Wall Street and VCs funds on unnecessary salaries

Sure. But they didn't hire themselves.

> these people got lucky they got $300k-$500k doing BS things that no one needs, and being the beneficiary of large, misguided wealth transfer

Agree, but again they didn't hire themselves or assign BS work to themselves.

> from the capitalist class to the worker class

At times like this we (programmers and technical managers) get reminded that despite our white collar trappings and high pay, what we do makes us workers rather than owners of capital. That probably comes as a surprise to the Silicon Valley tech-libertarians, except for the few who managed to start up their own business without going into hock with parasitical investors.

[FrontierPsych]

>discriminate against older and more experienced people -- a practice so widespread in tech we joke about it. Hint: seniority usually implies higher pay, lower chance of getting blinded by free pizza and dry cleaning, and more independence of thought in the workplace. Less work experience usually means a more compliant employee.

As someone who started in the industry in the mid-1980s, this practice was very well known back then, as I'm sure it was very well known before then.

At the start of my career in my mid-20s, we all talked about it all the time - that by 35-40, you are either in management or whatever else. But not a coder, for the most part, except for exceptions.

[gregjor]

62, still writing code and doing system admin. I started freelancing over a decade ago, that fixes some of the age discrimination. I specialize in taking over and fixing broken and abandoned projects, usually left behind when the younger people who apparently passed the "culture fit" test move on to something more fun.

[FrontierPsych]

Cool, good on you.

I did write: "except for exceptions." which of course, there always are.

Even back in the day when you and I were getting our first jobs in tech in the mid-1980s. I'm sure you were very aware of the whole thing about getting pushed out of tech when you are 35-40, no?

And even back in the day, we also knew people mainly got pushed out because people stopped keeping up with the latest trends, langauges, etc, and if someone did, then that is the kind of person who will have a much greater chance of coding into their 60s.

Personally I stopped and moved onto other things.

[gregjor]

I got my first programming job in 1979, at 19. Until I got to my 30s I mostly worked with people my age or older. I never had any trouble finding work and only ran into what I perceived as age discrimination when interviewing with teams of people a decade or younger than me.

It never bothered me to work with younger people, I can keep up, and experience still counts in most companies. I worked in Silicon Valley for a while, found my age counting against me there, but age didn’t seem to matter much outside of the SV environment.

As a freelancer my age never comes up, I don’t have to interview and sometimes I never even meet my customer in person.

Age discrimination does happen. On the other hand I’m not sure I would fit in to a team of people half my age. It also happens that people get older and set in their ways, resisting change and sticking to what worked in the past, and that trait will limit opportunities just as much as gray hair.

[FrontierPsych]

oh, wow, ok. 19...

I went to university and didn't get out until mid-1980s. We're the same age.

About 5 years ago, I did work in a tech company startup with 21 and 22 years old. On my side it was just fine. Don't know what they thought, but it worked out ok for me.

[opisthenar84]

This is one of the most level-headed comments I've seen in a long while. :+1:

FAANG only cares about bottom line. Ignore whatever leadership says about overhiring or whatever other BS.

[mouzogu]

> over-hired to hoard "talent" and slow down their competitors

to say they are "hoarding talent" is to give them far too much credit.

they have budget they spend it so next year have more budget. and big team makes boss look important.

[VirusNewbie]

But the vast majority of folks laid off were entry level or jr engineers.